


old lovers fall like leaves (but just if you let them)

by tomlinsublime



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: I hate it, M/M, angst???, bye, crappy happy beginning, crappy happy end, crappy sad middle, first piece i ever wrote, hahahahakillme, honestly, larry stylinson - Freeform, like really, lol this is so short, this sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsublime/pseuds/tomlinsublime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis sees a boy with beautiful wispy curls that mimic the ocean waves at high tide during the August and eyes that boldly challenge the beauty of an old maple tree during April and lips painted as red as a warm Australian sunset in September and skin as delicately porcelain as a feather-light dusting of snow in November.</p><p> Louis thinks this boy must be as beautiful as Paris, albeit his never being there. But, in the movies, Paris is youthfully alive and naively happy and it seeps love into every corner and every nook and every cranny. So, yeah, this unnamed boy is Paris.</p><p>Or, the one where Harry is Paris and Louis blinks a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	old lovers fall like leaves (but just if you let them)

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! 
> 
> SO this is my first time posting here in the lovely ao3 community, and what better to debut my (horrid) writing here than with the first fic i actually wrote (finished).
> 
> I wrote this about a year and a half ago, and honestly i can't even believe i'm posting it but, well.
> 
> since this is the first piece that i'm publishing, feedback and critique is extremely welcome and highly encouraged!!
> 
> thanks, and more importantly sorry, to anyone who happens to stumble across this,  
> \- W
> 
> p.s. please excuse the shaky & rushed resolution just pretend it's not even there  
> p.s.s. this is unbeta'd haha kill my ass  
> \---
> 
> title taken from the song "Paris" by Geographer

\-----

Louis sees a boy with beautiful wispy curls that mimic the ocean waves at high tide during the August and eyes that boldly challenge the beauty of an old maple tree during April and lips painted as red as a warm Australian sunset in September and skin as delicately porcelain as a feather-light dusting of snow in November.

Louis thinks this boy must be as beautiful as Paris, albeit his never being there. But, in the movies, Paris is youthfully alive and naively happy and it seeps love into every corner and every nook and every cranny. So, yeah, this unnamed boy is Paris.

\-----

Louis watches the way Harry lets himself become completely enamored with everything he does, like an artist engulfs himself in making sure every brush stroke is perfect, like an author locks herself away in a room for daysweeksmonths just to find the perfect word, like a young teenage boy pinning after his first crush who he will most definitely wed, no questions asked. 

Louis thinks the furrow of Harry's eyebrows resemble the sharp, tight arch of the Pont de l'Archevêché and he thinks that Harry's eyes are like the Arc de Triomphe because they're so unusual, and so is a massive arc standing out in the middle of nowhere. At first, they can be a bit off putting, but upon closer inspection, you see the swirling colors and the intricate design and you wonder just how much love had to be put in to both of them to make them so pretty.

\-----

Louis notes how Harry twists and writhes under his touch like the Seine curls and turns through la Ville Lumiére. How Harry's skin glows like lights that bounce and bend in reflection on the water. How it's so extraordinarily hot in their tiny, cramped bedroom like 3 P.M on a Sunday in June in la Ville de l'Amour, with all the radiating love and adoration and affection making it even warmer. Louis determines that Harry's lips taste like strawberry bottereaux, sweet and warm and horrendously addictive in the most delicious way.

Louis concludes that their curled toed, wide mouthed, sealed eyed finish is as spectacular and breathtaking and beautiful as fireworks rocketing up into the summer sky and cascading down in a waterfall of colors and shimmers above the Eiffel Tower, using the constellations and the full moon of the starlit night as a backdrop while they paint masterpiece after masterpiece of achingly gorgeous grassy greens and glowing golds and almost unnoticeable flecks of baby blue.

\-----

Louis thinks Harry is his reason to live. Harry is the silence that gives French mimes their awe. Harry is the cold morning coffee warming the insides of strangers, friends, and lovers all rushing to where they need to be, all rushing to try and keep up with the speed of the world around them. Harry is la lune hauntingly illuminating the faces of jeunes amoureux stealing kisses while dashing home to sneak into bed before mother and father find out their daughter has fallen in love with le pauvre garçon sur la route. But mostly, Louis thinks Harry is the Paris sun shining high and proud at noon, glorious warmth pouring on everyone, bathing them with love and affection.

But,

Louis forgets that the sun also causes sunburn.

Until he comes to his senses.

\-----

Louis realizes that Paris isn't all it's cut out to be. He thinks it's hard to focus on its beauty when there's piss and shit in every alley and beggars rehearsed pleas echoing in his cloudy mind and god damn it, it's crowded as fuck. Granted, it's summer, and tourists are everywhere. But, still.

\-----

It's during the last minute, spontaneous trip to Paris with Harry in a final desperate attempt to rekindle their pathetically fading relationship, that Louis realizes Harry is nothing like Paris. He may look like Paris, but on the inside, Louis is Paris. Louis is Paris because Harry is a viking in the Siege of Paris. Harry tried to take over Louis and destroy him and hurt him and burn him until he was a measly pile of bittersweet smelling ashes, but Louis' head (with an angry disagreement from the heart) wouldn't allow it. His own personal Count Odo made sure the walls were reinforced to the point of no return.

Harry surrenders.

\-----

three years pass (or thirty six months, or one-hundred-fifty-six weeks, or one-thousand-ninety-six days. Not that he's counting or anything) and Louis finds himself in a small bistro in the slightly shady part of London, across the street from his new flat. He's with his boyfriend of 3 months, Greg, who reminds Louis nothing of Paris. Greg is too realistic and pessimistic and cynical to encompass Paris, but that's okay, Louis doesn't want another Paris.

As he and Greg step up to order a croissant and a strawberry bottereaux (you'd never guess who's was who's), Louis sees him.

\-----

Louis sees a boy with curls swept up in a half-attempted quaff that looks like a lopsided (or sad) wave and eyes that are darker than he remembers, lost is the glow of passion and love reserved only for Louis. Just Louis. Always Louis. He sees lips chapped and cracked and dry like the Mojave in mid-July and he sees black ink ranging from dotting and dusting to blotching and battering his smooth alabaster skin. And fuck. He's grown up. He's grown up in those three years Louis refused and rejected any and all contact with Harry, and he's still so beautiful and breathtaking and Louis hates himself for ever letting this boy go because he didn't get to see him grow, he didn't get to help him grow, he didn't get to grow with him. And that's devastating. It's so, so devastating that Louis realizes, finally, how much he fucked up. 

With a short, sideways glance at Greg accompanied by a hasty, “Greg, you can leave now,” Greg shrugs, pivots on his heel, and walks away while whistling some shitty pop song (and no, it's not too harsh, because honestly, Greg and Louis were more friends than anything).

Louis turns back to Harry, who drops his nervous gaze from Louis' little scene down to the modern granite counter-top, heart pounding like a rabbit sprinting from a wolf and blush fanning his cheeks like a wildfire spreading in the west and ears burning like he's a tea kettle screeching with rage to get me the fuck off of this oven. It's just like the first time he had a conversation with Louis, but that doesn't make it any less nerve-wracking or graceful or even easy. In fact, their last conversation (which consisted of yelled “I never want to see you again”'s and “Go to Hell, Styles”'s and “I fucking hate you, Tomlinson”'s, but unspoken “don't leave”'s and “I'm sorry”'s and “What did I do wrong?”'s) makes the situation here harder. 

“um.... what...er..what can I get for you?” Harry stumbles like a girl talking to her middle school crush for the first time, but the girl and Harry aren't in all that different positions, now.

Louis blinks.

“um, Lou.....Louis?”

Louis blinks again.

“Look, there's a long line of impatient customers waiting and you're not making them any happier so if you could please just move so I can take the next person's order before they-” Louis blocks out the rest of Harry's words with the biggest shit-eating grin Harry had ever seen, complete with the smooth pull of his cheeks and the stretch of Louis' paper thin lips and his little canines poking out (along with other teeth, but Louis' canines were Harry's favorites because, well).

Sighing, Harry turns to his coworker and says, “Listen, Lou, can you take this group? I need to sort something out...” to which Lou supplies with an affectionate scoff, “go on, darling, young love is more important than making overpriced pastries for hipsters, I'd reckon.'”

Harry shuffles from behind the counter until he's stood directly in front of Louis, who still hasn't moved, and is still blinking. With an eye roll, Harry takes Louis' hand and drags him out the side door into the small alley which suspiciously smells like cat piss and drugs, but why would Harry question that if he could question if Louis still feels the sparks too (but the answer is pretty obvious).

Louis is still not responding to anything, so Harry does what he knows will get a reaction out of the caramel haired boy.

He kisses him.

And Louis kisses back.  
\-----

One chilly night in October, when they're lying on a couch too small for the both of them with their legs tangled so tight it's impossible to decide who's limbs are who's, Louis thinks.

Louis thinks of how he was right, how Harry is nothing like Paris, and Louis doesn't need a Paris, because Paris is disgusting and overrated and so cliche.

So, no, Harry's not Paris, Harry is so, so much more.

Harry is Louis' world, Harry is all the cities and towns and all the countries and states and provinces and seas and oceans and caves and cliffs and mountains and valleys and hills and plains and everything else.

 

 

And the world is all his.

\-----


End file.
